Reading Comprehension

PT118 · S2 · P4 · Q21 Canadian Aboriginal Rights

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The following passage was written in the late 1980s.

Topic

The ongoing challenges aboriginal peoples face in Canada when seeking legal recognition and enforcement of their constitutional rights, especially regarding land and traditional customs.

Framework

Problem / Solution

Main Point

Even though Canada extended constitutional protection to aboriginal rights in 1982, the implementation and recognition of these rights remain inconsistent and problematic due to vague legal language, interpretation issues in provincial courts, and difficulties tied to proving and defining aboriginal customs and land ownership. The sentence appears late in the first paragraph and best summarizes the main frustration.

P1: Constitutional Reform and Its Limits

Constitutional protection for aboriginal rights was added in 1982 to help secure these rights for Indian, Inuit, and Métis peoples. However, this move shifted the burden of interpreting vague constitutional language to provincial courts, leading to inconsistent application and weak protection of aboriginal rights despite their ongoing advocacy.

P2: Difficulties Proving Customary Rights

The constitution says aboriginal peoples have rights to land, self-government, and legal protection of customs, but applying these in real life is hard. Courts want proof that a custom is "traditional," meaning it existed before British rule. This is tough because aboriginal societies often rely on oral history, making it hard to provide the kind of written evidence the courts want.

P3: Interpreting "Ownership" and Restrictive Court Decisions

Even when aboriginal groups prove their land claims, courts often interpret their rights very narrowly. For example, in a 1984 Ontario case, judges decided owning land did not mean full ownership (like selling it), but just the right to use it for survival. The author criticizes the provincial court for being too conservative and suggests real progress may only come if these issues reach Canada's Supreme Court, which might enforce constitutional reforms more robustly.

21.

Which one of the following most accurately describes the author's main purpose in the second-to-last sentence of the first paragraph?

to demonstrate that the decisions
Too Strong: rarely conform
The author's discussion is limited to talking about the difficult role the provincial courts play at this stage of the new constitutional reforms. She is never arguing that provincial courts rarely conform to the goals of constitutional reforms.
3% picked this
Correct
to locate the source of
Why this is right
This is appealing since it's saying, "To describe the Problem". The first paragraph covers the underlying reason why constitutional reforms were enacted and then leads into the ongoing problem with protecting aboriginal rights, by explaining how the provincial courts have a huge burden in interpreting those rights, leading to uneven recognition and establishment of aboriginal rights. The systemic problem is that the constitution, which governs the entire country, as language that is supposed to establish aboriginal rights, but because the language is very general and hard to interpret, provincial court rulings are creating a lot of difficulties for aboriginal rights.
Skill tested: Local Purpose · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
77% picked this
to identify the specific source
Wrong Problem
This is tempting because it seems to be saying, "to describe the Problem", but this is saying that the problem is involved in enacting constitutional reforms. However, the constitutional reforms were already enacted in 1982. The passage isn't discussing a problem with enacting reforms. It's describing the problem that has followed the enactment of reforms.
15% picked this
to describe one aspect of
Wrong Role
This sounds too neutral and factual and doesn't connect to the Big Picture. We want to hear that the first paragraph establishes the Problem that the rest of the passage will unpack. That was the author's primary goal in the first paragraph, not just to describe one aspect of the enactment process.
1% picked this
to criticize the use of
Contradicted
The author isn't mad at the general language in the constitution. She refers to it as "necessarily general constitutional language". She understands that when statues or constitutions are written, the language needs to be left general; then courts can refine the exact meaning through the hearing of individual cases.
4% picked this

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